At 29 years old, Shaunta Richardson looks back at more than a decade of working in the fast food industry, starting when she was 16.

Richardson, a Burger King cook who moved back to New Orleans from Texas this year after fleeing Hurricane Katrina nine years ago, said something is familiar between her teenage years and today -- the numbers behind the dollar sign on pay day.

"It seems like the checks look the same from then, to now," Richardson said Thursday morning.

Strikes were forming in more than 100 cities nationwide with reports of arrests in New York and Chicago. Labor organizers are being backed by the Service Employees International Union.

Critics of the call for a minimum $15 hourly wage at fast food restaurants say such an increase would force job cuts or price increases. The plans for civil disobedience acts have been called a publicity stunt one group.

Workers and supporters rallied inside a Burger King on Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans later in the day. Three people were arrested.

Richardson, mom to a an 11-year-old boy and 10 year-old girl, earns $8 per hour. Back in Austin, as an assistant manager at a local fast food restaurant, she was paid $9 per hour. The federal minimum wage is $7.25.

The Burger King where she works, she said, restricts employees' time on the clock to 27 hours week. "Really, you can't afford to live on that," she said.

Because her shifts change from day-to-day, morning to evening, it's hard to squeeze in a steady second job, she said. She quit an extra job in home health care as an aide because of scheduling.